Major grain store planned for Snetterton
A GROUP of East Anglian farmers has unveiled plans for an 85,000-tonne grain store and processing centre at Snetterton, Norfolk.
Working in partnership with farmer-owned grain business Openfield, the development be modelled on the new Camgrain facility east of Cambridge. It will condition and store grain for local end-users.
East Bradenham farmer David Hill, who is on the steering committee for the project, said the region desperately needed a facility of this nature to meet increasingly exacting grain user needs.
“We need to be more in control of what we supply into the grain chain. Consumers of East Anglian wheat are increasingly recognising the value they gain from our grain and so must we if we are to grab more value.
“We need to appreciate that we no longer produce feed wheats but food wheat. This means supplying the end-user with exactly what they want when they want it, reducing food miles and carbon footprints.”
Many on-farm stores and some independently run facilities were antiquated, simply couldn’t cope at harvest and lacked the capacity to store grain to high enough standards, said Mr Hill.
Openfield’s storage network of 15 stores – with three more in the development pipeline – currently supplies more than 1m tonnes of grain UK-wide.
The Snetterton project would fill a large gap in the supply chain from a major grain producing region, said Rob Sanderson, Openfield’s head of central storage. It would also open up wider markets to the region’s farmers.
“We have been looking for a suitable site for 18 months and have now secured an option to purchase a 23 acre site at Snetterton off an existing junction with the A11,” said Mr Sanderson.
“This is an ideal location with excellent logistics, with the region having a combined production of 2.8 million tonnes of grain every year. Initial planning discussions with Breckland Council have been very encouraging.”
Farmer members of the new partnership who needed to centrally store their grain prior to the opening of the proposed new facility would be able to utilise other stores within the network as part of the deal.
This would include Camgrain – which is 45 miles away from Snetterton – and a new facility planned at Northamptonshire.
The phased development is expected to include daily intake facilities that can cope with between 5-10,000t a day over the harvest period and drying capacity to cope with 500t/hr.
